Edgar, it's very frustrating trying to have a discussion with you when I repeatedly ask you questions that are meant to clarify things that seem unclear to me in your arguments, and you just completely ignore these questions and just give me a broad restatement of your overall views, which for me usually fails to clarify the specific things I found unclear. In the post you're responding to here I went as far as to give a list of simple yes-or-no questions to make it as easy as possible for you to see what I was asking and give me a quick answer--but you didn't directly address any of these questions. Instead of another exposition on your theories which *you* may think addresses the questions but in most cases doesn't for me, could you please just answer the following questions yes or no? I'll just quote them again from my previous post, but put them in a numbered list this time:
1. 'my question was specifically about *past* events, and it doesn't depend at all on the assumption that past events "exist", only that there is an objective truth about them. Do you believe there is an objective truth about whether astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, or about whether all life was created in seven days or evolved over millions of years?' 2. 'If your answer is "yes", then what I'm asking is whether, among the objective truths about past events, there is an objective truth about WHETHER THEY HAPPENED AT THE SAME TIME AS ONE ANOTHER. Yes or no?' 3. 'And if the answer is "yes", please tell me clearly whether you think there is any way to determine empirically the truth about whether two past events happened at the same time, or if it is fundamentally unknowable to all beings within our universe' (Obviously 2 and 3 only need to be answered if you do in fact answer "yes" to the previous questions.) Jesse On Sat, Feb 8, 2014 at 10:52 AM, Edgar L. Owen <[email protected]> wrote: > Jesse, > > When I say 'everything happens in the same present moment'. > > 1. By everything I mean everything that actually happens, not everything > you can imagine happening like Jesus not being crucified or Hitler winning > WW2. I would think that would be obvious. > > 2. Everything in the history of the universe does NOT happen at the same > p-time. P-time progresses just as clock time does and only the current > p-time is called the current present moment. That present moment is not the > same as the previous present moment though each as experienced as THE > present moment. In each cycle or moment of p-time, the current present > moment, the information state of the entire universe is recomputed. That, > and only that, is what actually happens in every present moment of p-time > as p-time progresses. > > 3. Part of what happens in every cycle of p-time is that all relativistic > effects, including all clock times and their differences, are recomputed. > The recomputed state of all those relativistic effects then has the local > re-computed clock time 'attached' to it as its measure. These local clock > times are NOT the measure of p-time, because they vary within p-time as the > twins show. > > Edgar > > On Friday, February 7, 2014 7:53:36 PM UTC-5, jessem wrote: >> >> >> On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 3:43 PM, Edgar L. Owen <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Jesse, >>> >>> Re your question of "simultaneous past p-times" its a good question and >>> I did answer it but will give a more complete answer now. >>> >>> I said first that everything happens at the same p-time (the same >>> present moment of p-time as p-time continually happens). >>> >> >> That's a complete non-answer. I guess you are *defining* "everything" to >> mean "everything which actually exists in my presentist ontology, i.e. only >> things as they are right now". But my question was specifically about >> *past* events, and it doesn't depend at all on the assumption that past >> events "exist", only that there is an objective truth about them. Do you >> believe there is an objective truth about whether astronauts landed on the >> moon in 1969, or about whether all life was created in seven days or >> evolved over millions of years? If your answer is "yes", then what I'm >> asking is whether, among the objective truths about past events, there is >> an objective truth about WHETHER THEY HAPPENED AT THE SAME TIME AS ONE >> ANOTHER. Yes or no? Please give a clear answer to this question. And if the >> answer is "yes", please tell me clearly whether you think there is any way >> to determine empirically the truth about whether two past events happened >> at the same time, or if it is fundamentally unknowable to all beings within >> our universe (if the latter, that's what I mean by 'metaphysical'). >> >> >>> >>> But as I've explained, p-time is that IN WHICH all computations of >>> measurable quantities takes place, so it doesn't really have a metric in >>> the sense that clock time does, because it is the logical computational >>> locus of the origin of all metrics. >>> >>> >> >> I have no idea what you mean by "metric" here, which in mathematics >> refers to a function that defines some notion of "distance" along paths in >> a manifold (which can include proper time if the manifold in question is >> relativistic spacetime). Again, please just tell me yes or no if you think >> there's an objective truth about whether past events happened at the same >> time as one another, no technical ideas like "metrics" are necessary to >> answer this question. >> >> Jesse >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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